SEATTLE (Legal Newsline) - A Washington school district must pay $500,000 to a child who said an elementary school classmate abused him because it failed to preserve video evidence that may or may not have proved the boy’s claims, an appeals court ruled.
On May 22, 2017, a first-grader identified as J.K. told his mother a classmate sexually abused him at Eastgate Elementary School. J.K.’s parents notified the Bellevue School District, which informed Child Protective Services and the Bellevue Police Department. The following month the child told the school district the same classmate had abused him on the school bus. The alleged abuser, in turn, accused J.K. of bullying him.
The school district had video cameras at Eastgate and on the school buses but they automatically deleted and overwrote old footage. Under its retention policy, the school district was supposed to preserve footage once it reasonably anticipated litigation. The district received a tort claim form and litigation hold request from J.K. in June, less than a week later its general counsel sent a litigation hold letter to BSD employees, and the child sued BSD on Oct. 10, 2017.
The district didn’t act to preserve video until Dec. 8 and missed deadlines for other discovery evidence. The plaintiffs moved for a default judgment and the trial court granted it, instructing the jury that the school district had breached its duty of care and the child had been repeatedly sexually abused. The jury awarded $500,000.
The Washington Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in a Dec. 6 opinion.
On appeal, BSD argued the video evidence would have been irrelevant because the cameras didn’t cover the areas where J.K. and the other child would have interacted. Cameras that covered the entrance to a bathroom where J.K. claimed to have been abused weren’t working at the time of the alleged offenses and the only interior camera showed the inside of a network wiring closet.
The appeals court acknowledged the cameras may not have shown everything but said “it is possible the two cameras could have captured relevant material, such as a playground supervisor not at their post.” Bus footage would have been more important, the court continued, since it might have shown the two children interacting and identified other potential witnesses.
The school district cited other cases, including one involving a slip-and-fall at a Walmart store, where the destruction of video evidence didn’t lead to sanctions. But the appeals court said BSD employees were culpable for destroying evidence when they were on notice the district was likely to be sued.
“The trial court acted within its discretion by concluding that imposing a lesser sanction than default judgment would not provide enough deterrence for those who may destroy potentially damaging evidence,” the appeals court ruled.